Page 9 of Fallen Empire

“Her room. I’m by the window.”

“You need to step out,” I said quietly. “Millie can’t hear this.”

There was a pause. Then rustling—fabric shifting, maybe his coat. A soft, muffled voice in the background.

“I’ll be right back,” Ben murmured, too low to be meant for me.

Another pause. A quiet click as the door shut. Then wind.

When he spoke again, his voice was tighter. Sharper.

“I’m in the hallway.”

I exhaled. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to hide anything else from her. She’s watching everything. Listening to every shift in tone.”

“Yeah. I know.”

I hesitated, eyes dropping back to the paper in front of me, the red ink bleeding across Savannah’s estate like a wound that wouldn’t close.

“There’s something you need to know.”

“What?”

“Someone left a newspaper here. Foreign. Thinner print, different texture. I don’t recognize the outlet, but it was delivered to me directly. No return address. No tracking.”

Ben didn’t interrupt.

“It had one of the headlines about Sinclair’s real estate falling apart, liquidation underway. But across the bottom… someone had written in red ink. Not printed.Written.”

“What did it say?”

My hand curled into a fist. My jaw clenched as I recited it from memory. Because it was already burned into me.

“You took something from me. Now I’ll take everything from you. The war has only just begun.”

Ben exhaled slowly, but said nothing.

“It’s not just some lunatic,” I said. “It was deliberate. Direct. This was sent to me, Ben. They know where I am. And they know what I did.”

“We always knew Bruce wasn’t working alone.”

“Yeah. But now they’re circling.”

Another silence stretched between us.

“You need to be careful,” Ben finally said. “This doesn’t stop with her waking up.”

“No,” I muttered. “This is where it starts.”

I was already moving. Phone still pressed to my ear, I headed toward the bedroom, grabbing clean clothes from the dresser and tossing them on the bed.

“I’m not asking if I can come,” I said. “I’m telling you, I’ll be there.”

Ben sighed. “They might not let you in. They’re still pissed.”

“I don’t care. I’m sober. I’m clear. And if she’s waking up, I’m not wasting another second sitting here waiting for someone to tell me it’s okay.”

“You said that last time.”